"Hebbel, in a surprising entry in his diary, asks what takes away 'life's magic in the later years'. 'It is because in all the brightly coloured contorted marionettes, we see the revolving cylinder that sets them in motion, and because for this very reason the captivating variety of life is reduced to wooden monotony. A child seeing the tightrope-walkers singing, the pipers playing, the girls fetching water, the coachmen driving, thinks all this is happening for the joy of doing so; he can't imagine that these people also have to eat and drink, go to bed and get up again. We, however, know what is at stake.' Namely, earning a living, which commandeers all those activities as mere means, reduces them to interchangeable, abstract labour-time. The quality of things ceases to be their essence and becomes the accidental appearance of their value. . . . "

"In his purposeless activity the child, by a subterfuge, sides with use-value against exchange value. Just because he deprives the things with which he plays of their mediated usefulness, he seeks to rescue in them what is benign towards men and not what subserves the exchange relation that equally deforms men and things. The little trucks travel nowhere and the tiny barrels on them are empty; yet they remain true to their destiny by not performing, not participating in the process of abstraction that levels down that destiny, but instead abide as allegories of what they are specifically for. Scattered, it is true, but not ensnared, they wait to see whether society will finally remove the social stigma on them; whether the vital process between men and things, praxis, will cease to be practical. The unreality of games gives notice that reality is not yet real. Unconsciously, they rehearse the right life. The relation of children to animals depends entirely on the fact that Utopia goes disguised in the creatures whom Marx even begrudged the surplus value they contribute as workers. In existing without any purpose recognizable to men, animals hold out, as if for expression, their own names, utterly impossible to exchange. This makes them so beloved of children, their contemplation so blissful. I am a rhinoceros signifies the shape of the rhinoceros. . . . "

Miniature Teapot
1827-29
silver
made by Henry Flavelle of DublinMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Rattle, Whistle, Bells, and Teether
ca. 1735-45
silver, coral
made by Richard and Peter van Dyck of New YorkMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

During many past ages pieces of coral could be found in common use as baby-teethers, often in expensive and ingenious settings (for the babies of the privileged, needless to say). In addition to attractiveness and practicality, coral offered protection from childhood illnesses, and, more particularly, protection from enchantment.

Toy Figures
1883
painted tin
HollandRijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Lion
1845-55
painted earthenware by John Bell
USAMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

László Moholy-NagyDolls on the Balcony
1926
gelatin silver printMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Curators at the Met are keen to point out that Moholy-Nagy was a Constructivist and not a Surrealist– even though his image above is built around the near-universal surrealist cliché of the dismembered, dehumanized doll.

COMRADES OF TIME

"Hesitation with regard to the modern projects mainly has to do with a growing disbelief in their promises. Classical modernity believed in the ability of the future to realize the promises of past and present – even after the death of God, even after the loss of faith in the immortality of the soul. The notion of a permanent art collection says it all: archive, library and museum promised secular permanency, a material infinitude that substituted for the religious promise of resurrection and eternal life. During the period of modernity, the 'body of work' replaced the soul as the potentially immortal part of the Self. . . . But today, this promise of an infinite future holding the results of our work has lost its plausibility. Museums have become the sites of temporary exhibitions rather than spaces for permanent collections. The future is ever newly planned – the permanent change of cultural trends and fashions makes any promise of a stable future for an artwork or a political project improbable."

– Borys Groys, Comrades of Time, 2009

"I study only what I like; I occupy my mind only with the ideas that interest me. They may or may not prove useful, either to me or to others. Time either will or it will not bring about the circumstances that will lead me to a profitable employment of my acquisitions. In any case I will have had the inestimable advantage of not having been at odds with myself, and of having obeyed the promptings of my own mind and character."

– from Products of the Perfected Civilization: selected writings of Chamfort, edited and translated by W.S. Merwin (1969)